Idioms and Teamwork

Learning another language is pretty hard at my age. My husband is French, and I’ve been dedicated to learning the language for several years (yes, my Duolingo streak is impressive). Duolingo has been great in teaching me basics, though admittedly the grammar is a struggle. Despite that, on my recent vacation to France, I had no problem ordering at a restaurant, asking for directions, or having some basic conversations with my extended family.

But the thing about Duolingo is that it is just teaching me basic conversations. It’s not teaching me how to speak like a “local.” This is where having a full conversation in French with my husband can get extra funny.

I like the time he said “en faire tout un fromage” which literally translated means “to make a whole cheese of it.” I was so confused until we figured out he was saying the French equivalent of “to make a mountain out of a molehill,” which is an idiom. If you don’t remember what an idiom is, don’t worry, I can tell you. In a nutshell (an idiom), it is a group of words that together have a meaning that’s different from the actual words.

In English or in French, it’s funny to think about the origin and meaning of idioms. As a theater major, we used to say “break a leg” before every show. But the first time I said this to my stepson before a soccer game, he thought I was being mean! It reminded me that we NEVER said this before dance concerts in college, because you don’t tell a dancer to break a leg – we used to simply say “merde!” It’s a French word, ironically (google the meaning!), but I’d be really surprised if French dancers said this to each other!

It got me thinking about some of the phrases I’ve heard at Stoke Leadership when clients talk about their teams and their needs. These idioms paint vivid pictures in my head, and it helps me understand what is going on within the organization, and what the client may need.

I feel like I’ve heard all of the following pretty recently, and while they are each different, they are referring to the same thing: teams that aren’t working as well together as they could.

“My team walks on eggshells around each other.”

“We seem to beat around the bush in a lot in meetings.”

“Someone always wants to play devils advocate when certain team members bring up new ideas.”

“Our new team member is rocking the boat a lot.”

“I feel like there is an elephant in the room when I bring up certain topics with my team.”

“My team members have burned a lot of bridges within the company.”

When we hear leaders mention these phrases, we know that we probably need to talk to the organization about doing a Team Effectiveness workshop to get back on track (yes, this is an idiom too!).

Focused Team Effectiveness workshops are a great way to really help your individual team members recognize themselves and their own behaviors. It creates a safe space for everyone to acknowledge differences and learn how they can be strengths in a team environment.

We love talking to leaders about creating ways to communicate with their teams and break down barriers (idiom).

If you are looking to move from “My team seems to be at loggerheads with each other” to “Our team is firing on all cylinders” (two more idioms), Stoke Leadership can help.

Reach out, we’d love to start a conversation.

We promise to go easy on the idioms (in English or French).